A (Very) Long Walk: Material Semiotics Along Prince Edward Island’s Old Railway

Ryan E. Drew (@ryanelliotdrew)

200+ km on foot / Tignish to Souris / two weeks in May–June 2025

I began at Shirley’s Café with toast, two eggs, a MacBook, a Tupperware specimen box, a ziplock bag of trail mix, and the mild embarrassment of having forgotten sunscreen. From West to East, I walked highway shoulders and former rail corridors (now the Confederation Trail) to better understand ecological precarity through the island’s ordinary material record. Drawing on a collection of found artefacts and multimedia “footnotes,” I read the material semiotics of historical technology as sign-bearing traces of modernization, circulation, repair, neglect, and adaptation. Some would say I cheated. I do not think I did. I certainly did not prepare well, nor was I interested in submitting to every available discomfort. I thought the walking part itself sufficiently punishing, especially given that I at no point was adequately supplied — or hydrated. I brought my home office, a bike one day, and preferred to sleep at home. Monster Red Bull gave me wings. This webpage forms a brief preface to a complete publication forthcoming in 2027.